Tag Archives: Potatoes

I have never really celebrated Bastille Day much back in France. To me it was mostly a public holiday which also happened to fall on my Dad’s birthday, with all the accompanying jokes that the French army was marching in Paris to salute him. As a kid, it was also the day for fireworks, where it was de rigueur to exclaim after each blast: “Oooh, la belle bleue, ooooh la belle rouge!”

I was very pleased and surprised to see that Bastille Day was commonly celebrated in Australia and decided to have my own little Bastille Day dinner at home this year.

Extract from the Great Grand and Famous Chefs:
“At a time when French chefs barely deigned to serve the humble tuber, Robuchon’s pomme puree were a revelation, if not a revolution.”

When we travelled to France last year, M. and I stayed in a hotel in Clichy, and still very jet-lagged were flicking through some cable channels until we fell on a documentary about Joel Robuchon. “Plus de beurre”, he was telling his assistant, “plus de beeeeeeurre!!!” (“More butter, MORE BUTTER!!!”), there must have been at least 500g of butter in the mash already, but he wanted more Beurre! That became the subject of a fair few laughs after that and as a souvenir, M. gave me the Complete Robuchon recipe book for Christmas.